Apple insider trading suit expanded

Alleges executives sold stock on inside knowledge of profit warning

Lawyers Milberg Weiss' claim that Apple directors deliberately sold $22 million worth of AAPL shares just three weeks before announcing a massive revenue downturn has been granted class action status.

The suite was filed a wee while back on behalf of the Hawaii Structural Iron Workers Pension Trust Fund. Essentially, it alleges senior Apple staffers profited from their inside knowledge of very poor sales of the Power Mac G4 Cube and declining interest in the iMac on the part of Apple's education customers.

Four Apple executives sold 370,000 shares and then, the suit says, some 25 trading days later, Apple issued its revenue and profit warning. Almost immediately, over a couple of days' trading, its share price fell from around $61 to $13.

No wonder the Fund is pissed off - and so, its lawyers expect, will be many investors who bought Apple stock during the Mac maker's fourth quarter of fiscal 2000, between 19 July 2000 and 28 September 2000. It is welcoming any of them who are to join in its legal action against Apple in the hope of winning significant damages. ®